"We have a status, albeit not one on WhatsApp. Our status is modest and honest servants of Hashem"
I know that there are some Arabs who are good people and helpful. Rabbi Feldman bore witness to one who assisted him, and I feel gratitude to my doctor for the wonderful care he provided when I had Covid. Even so, I think it’s actually more correct to say that “many of our neighbors just want a quiet life,” to be allowed to go about their business, rather than “most of our neighbors,” as Shoshana Friedman chooses to believe.
And I think most of us Anglos living here — perhaps even most Ashkenazim — don’t really understand the culture and society of our neighbors. A native Israeli advised my husband years ago that the best attitude to have is “kabdeihu v’chashdeihu — respect him but be suspicious of him.”
Last summer’s riots in cities like Lod were a wake-up call, if we needed one. These were Israeli Arabs rioting, not Palestinians. Jews living in mixed buildings reported their neighbors shouting down to the rioters and pointing them toward the cars that belonged to the Jews, urging them to destroy them. So I don’t delude myself. I believe most of them do want to see us gone.
Then how do I manage to live here? I remind myself that HaKadosh Baruch Hu watches over us wherever we are — be it Brooklyn or any other place in the world — but especially Eretz Yisrael. Just look at the miracles He has performed for us in the last three-quarters of a century.
Create a free account to keep reading.
